Parameters

The internet is a wonderful way to hear the teachings of others we might not otherwise even know exist...

Nadia Bolz Weber is one of those people for me. A couple of times a week, I spend time catching up on her newest sermon, or reading (or re-reading) some of her older ones and I rarely come away without at least one..."she's talking about me!" moments...

For those who haven't read or heard her before, I will warn sometimes her language might seem coarse but it's real...don't get hung up on the word choice because she does have a way of putting thoughts together that will speak to you (or at lease she does to me)...

Today was one of those days. While reading "Sermon on the Parameters We Prefer For Jesus to Work Under" God once again used her words to smack me in the head. (Don't be offended by that term, I know we serve a gentle and loving God but sometimes He has to resort to extreme measures to get my attention, or slow me down, or pull me out of the pity hole I have dug and jumped in to). Anyway, these words jumped off the page at me...

"...Because I noticed that in the text, Jesus rebuked the religious leader for valuing parameters more than people – not for defending the practice of Sabbath-keeping.  Sabbath was still a valid way in which divine love, and healing and grace happened. The leader of the synagogue was not wrong in his love for keeping Sabbath. He was wrong in assuming that if God works within the parameters of Sabbath keeping that God cannot also work outside the parameters of Sabbath keeping.

...I think what we are so prone to do is to think that if there is an experience of the Gospel within a particular set of circumstances, that means that only under that particular set of circumstances can the Gospel be experienced.  As though God’s agency is limited to the ways in which we happen to experience God.

A couple weeks ago I got to hear Catholic theologian James Allison talk about how we think faith is about striving – keeping parameters, calling people out for not having it right, spiritual practices, doctrinal purity… whatever – but that really faith is about relaxing. Specifically, relaxing in the way we do when we are with a friend who we know for certain is fond of us.  We don’t have to strive around them and we somehow still become our best self – funny, spontaneous, free. Allison suggests that faith is trusting so much that God is fond of us that we just fricken relax.
I think that is what Jesus was saying to the religious leader, not that there is anything wrong with Sabbath keeping, but that Oh my gosh, just relax.
And if that’s true…if faith is akin to relaxing and if relaxing about stuff is hard for us, I wonder if on some level that’s because It’s hard to relax when we think that grace is limited, or there is only so much divine love to go around. Which is when we should remind each other that divine love, healing, grace….. these are not economic categories.
Divine love is simply not a limited resource and it is most certainly not something that happens only here or only in this way or only among us or and… I can’t wait to see the blog comments on this one…only among Christians."

Take a few moments and read the entire text above...